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Rh early Christianity that scholars hesitated to apply to it the historical critical method of investigation. Since this hesitation has been over-come, it appears that the matter of the book is neither obscure nor mysterious, although many special points still remain to be cleared up." Without being paradoxical, we may affirm that the Apocalypse is the most intelligible book in the New Testament, because its author had not the individuality and originality of Paul, and because, historically, we can trace and comprehend its author’s position much better than we can, for instance, the theology of Paul. But the Encyclopaedia says that all interpretations not strictly historical must be excluded. The ethico-spiritualistic, rationalistic and dogmatic explanations such as were first attempted by the Alexandrine theologians are fatal to the under-standing of the book, as are also the explanations drawn from Church history which were first put forward by medieval sects. They all spoke in riddles; that is, by means of images, symbols, mystic numbers, forms of animals, and so on; they half concealed what they meant to